Which is Europe's most competitive league?

[ivansneck]

I've tried to use some statistics to determine which is Europe's most competitive league. Welcome to the ICC (Ivansneck Competitiveness Coefficient).

 

I decided to base it on the points gap between 5th and 3rd bottom. 5th because it generally means a team gest into the play offs or Europe. 3rd bottom usually means danger or relegation, i.e. it is a rough indication of the gap between success and failure.

 

I decided to use only fully national leagues with at least 16 clubs in them, so no tiny leagues like Scotland or Austria for example. Obviously in a 24 team league the points spread will be greater than in a 16 club league, so I've taken that into account by dividing the ICC by the number of clubs in the league. Also number of games played up to this point will have the same effect, so that is also included,

 

So the LOWEST ICC indicates the MOST competitive league.

 

Have a guess before you look at the attachment where the 33 leagues are in order, most competitive at the top.

 

I plan to extend this with @Blackville's help to the last 10 years to look for any patters with time.

 

Country.docx

[Chris]

Interesting to see the doc file attached, I would have said somewhere like the French or Dutch league for being the most competitive or at least at a push I might have said the German league.

[super_ram]

Very interesting.Looking forward to further updates.

[DangerousSausage]

Look forward to seeing what the pattern over the last 5 or 10 years is. One year is not necessarily representative. Another issue is - can you really claim that a league is competitive if the top one or two teams disappear into the distance, leaving behind a tight mid-table battle, a la SPL? The riches of the Champions League have led to one or two teams becoming far richer than the rest and dominating their league in many countries.

I don't mean to sound over-critical, by the way, it's very interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops!

[ivansneck]

You make a good point, and one I had a good think about. The SPL is obviously not included as the smaller the league the more effect one or two runaways at the top or bottom distort the statistics. I also thought the gap between top and bottom is not representative as you can have 1 team at the bottom stripped of points or with a points deduction, so I eventually settled on 5th as a mark of 'success' and 3rd bottom as 'failure'. I did consider using 3rd and 4th also but it's too much work!! So in essence this is an attempt at a measure of the gap between a good season and a bad one.

 

Overall, statistics can prove anything, but it's up to the user to interpret them correctly, and they are good at showing up trends. I agree this is a one-off and may or may not be representative.

[Blackville]

Interesting

[liampie]

this is interesting, though the majority of leagues are competitive within their own right.

if it was not european i would say the mls.

[DangerousSausage]

this is interesting, though the majority of leagues are competitive within their own right.

if it was not european i would say the mls.

 

The MLS is a bit different as the lowest-placed teams get the first pick of new players (or at least they used to) in an attempt to keep the league competitive. That just wouldn't be possible with EU labour laws. On the other hand, there is no relegation or promotion, which is what gives football as we know it so much drama.

[liampie]

The MLS is a bit different as the lowest-placed teams get the first pick of new players (or at least they used to) in an attempt to keep the league competitive. That just wouldn't be possible with EU labour laws. On the other hand, there is no relegation or promotion, which is what gives football as we know it so much drama.

i quite like how they draft players and have set rules about players from overseas.

its just a shame the football is pretty dull to watch.

[Dan-Pie]

If it weren't based solely on points, I would say the Bundesliga. Just look at how Dortmund have fallen..